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Tag: orlando criminal attorney

In the realm of law, in between the nether world and the iclouds, there is a place where things sometimes seem pretty darn good. Doesn’t mean it is! Or forever will be – but, for now, good. This This is where we find the following two cases (case law):

Both of these cases, for the time being, stop the practice of the State Attorneys going to court unarmed and arguing away a client’s chance to seal or expunge their criminal record without producing a single shred of evidence on which the Court could hang its hat. With these cases (and others) defense counsel is now sitting in the cat-bird’s seat!

State v. Carter, 18 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 782 (7th Jud. Cir., May 27, 2011): Order on Defense Motion to Suppress – Very interesting case regarding probable cause to arrest for a DUI. Court found stop legal and there was justification to perform FST’s. However, the court found that the FST’s, video, and observations were insufficient and did not rise to the level of probable cause to arrest. This resulted in a felony amount of marijuana which was found during the inventory search of the vehicle to also be suppressed.

Washington v. State, 36 Fla. L. Weekly D977 (Fla. 1st DCA, May 9, 2011): Defense Appeal, Reversed – An inability to pay for the electricity that makes the GPS monitor work is NOT a “willful” violation of conditions of probation.

Metz v. State, 36 Fla. L. Weekly D1008 (Fla. 4th DCA, May 11, 2011): Defense Appeal, Reversed – the rule of completeness apparently means if the LEO, testifying about a dealing in stolen property case, gets to say that the defendant admitted to “selling” the stuff then he also has to tell the jury that the defendant also told him that he did NOT know the property was stolen. Just takes all the fun out of testifying…

I’m back from learning to sail so these may be coming more frequently. We’ll see…

State v. Hankerson, 36 Fla. L. Weekly S182 (Fla. Apr 21, 2011): State sought review from DCA reversal of lower court denial of Motion to suppress, reversed/quashed – Defendant observed doing several quick hand to hand transactions. Law enforcement suspected criminal activity and had defendant stopped (investigatory detention) at which point the defendant is described as voluntarily removing his shoe where cocaine was found. Lower court denied motion to suppress. Issue resolved was that appellee can raise any grounds to sustain the lower courts ruling even grounds not raised at the trial level. Justice Pariente’s dissent really addresses dicta but provides a guide to determining when law enforcement has “probable cause” and when they only have “reasonable suspicion.” The dissent is worth a read. The opinion really deals with an appellate issue.

The Florida Supreme Court held that the state has the burden to establish probable cause for a warrantless search. When probable cause is based on a drug detection canine, the reliability of the drug detection canine falls to the state. The state may establish probable cause by demonstrating that the officer had a reasonable basis for believing the dog to be reliable based on the totality of the circumstances. “[T]he state must present the training and certification records, an explanation of the meaning of the particular training and certification of that dog, field performance records, and evidence concerning the experience and training of the officer handling the dog, as well as any other objective evidence known to the officer about the dog’s reliability in being able to detect the presence of illegal substances within the vehicle.”